Ken's Rage 2 is going to sell a couple of thousand copies on the Wii U across all western territories. At most.

Putting a game on a download network still incurs some costs, and that's before you need to take into account the less straightforward costs, such as the time that the marketing teams spent on the game (and there has been some social media attention and press release activity around the game, and yes journalists are being provided with review copies). A few thousand copies at profit margins of a couple of percentage points.

Tecmo Koei was wise to charge a premium, as the only people who were ever going to buy the game were the people who would buy it at premium price. No sense in dropping the price to sell a couple of dozen extra copies to the fence sitters across the world.

I really wish that consumers (gamers, whatever you want to call yourselves) would actually work in a company and be responsible for setting prices before they assume they know about setting prices for products.

For the record, I don't count myself a "gamer" and I'm not living in some fantasy world. I have run a number of businesses in the last twenty years. A lot of what you say is exactly what I was saying - is the higher price on the Wii U (note it's higher on the Wii U, no one's asking for a discount, just parity) justified by the extra development & distribution costs entailed. I tried asking the original question in a different way to get people to look at it differently. I guess your rant could either suggest I succeeded or that I failed miserably.

I'd also add one salient point you didn't mention: launching now, at a time when the Wii U still has a relatively small library of games and the release schedule is slow, it will probably pick up more sales than it would do releasing at any other time (as a proportion of install base, which, of course, at this point is still small, so it's kind of a moot point).

Well the thing in there's like 50 million PS3s out there. There's 3 million Wii Us. There's about a tenth of the install base, and let's not forget that many of the people who would be likely interested in this game already have the first on the PS3 and therefore likely to just pick it up on that console.

So Tecmo Koei could realistically afford to release it on the PS3 at a lower margin and assume that they will sell the numbers to maintain the profitability.

Point is, the Wii U is currently an expensive console to release games to, and until the numbers pick up then it's a little unreasonable to expect publishers to give it the same support they give the other consoles.

Point is, the Wii U is currently an expensive console to release games to, and until the numbers pick up then it's a little unreasonable to expect publishers to give it the same support they give the other consoles.

I've just realised my wider point's got lost here. Install base and demographics drive support from publishers, there's no argument about that. What I think's forgotten in the general whingeing about prices is that video game prices do not generally move in line with inflation or any other measure, once a standard emerges for that platform then that tends to stick for the duration of the generation. Having a price in mind for the end product is important for calculating a development budget so this, in combination with the expectations of consumers as to what games "should" cost is what fixes the price point. Some of the Wii U games in Europe have launched with prices commensurate with their equivalents on other platforms, e.g. Sonic Racing, Just Dance and Your Shape. Most, however, have gone for a price point 20% or more higher. That's a big hike but it's the first price hike for video games in quite some time. Basically publishers have taken the opportunity of a new console launch to bring RRP in line with current and projected inflation, thereby permitting themselves to plan ahead without having to work within development budgets which reduce in real terms.

For whatever reason, the internet is ful of people who seem to want to do nothing more than whine and spit hate fuelled bile (at companies and eachother). When the next MS and Sony consoles launch we'll likely see their games carrying the same price tags as Wii U games and there'll be a whole extra crowd of people joining in on this particular whinge-fest. After another year or so though, it will be simply the price games "are" and we can move on from it. It is expensive, particularly in a recession, but then all hobbies are.

Point is, the Wii U is currently an expensive console to release games to, and until the numbers pick up then it's a little unreasonable to expect publishers to give it the same support they give the other consoles.

I've just realised my wider point's got lost here. Install base and demographics drive support from publishers, there's no argument about that. What I think's forgotten in the general whingeing about prices is that video game prices do not generally move in line with inflation or any other measure, once a standard emerges for that platform then that tends to stick for the duration of the generation. Having a price in mind for the end product is important for calculating a development budget so this, in combination with the expectations of consumers as to what games "should" cost is what fixes the price point. Some of the Wii U games in Europe have launched with prices commensurate with their equivalents on other platforms, e.g. Sonic Racing, Just Dance and Your Shape. Most, however, have gone for a price point 20% or more higher. That's a big hike but it's the first price hike for video games in quite some time. Basically publishers have taken the opportunity of a new console launch to bring RRP in line with current and projected inflation, thereby permitting themselves to plan ahead without having to work within development budgets which reduce in real terms.

For whatever reason, the internet is ful of people who seem to want to do nothing more than whine and spit hate fuelled bile (at companies and eachother). When the next MS and Sony consoles launch we'll likely see their games carrying the same price tags as Wii U games and there'll be a whole extra crowd of people joining in on this particular whinge-fest. After another year or so though, it will be simply the price games "are" and we can move on from it. It is expensive, particularly in a recession, but then all hobbies are.

Just want to check we're on the same page here:

Wii U is next generation, and slightly higher price than last gen consoles. We can expect price parity, or slightly below price, compared to the next gen PS and Xbox games?

Because I agree with that, and I think it's fair for the industry to push for higher prices in the next gen.

Wii U is next generation, and slightly higher price than last gen consoles. We can expect price parity, or slightly below price, compared to the next gen PS and Xbox games?

Because I agree with that, and I think it's fair for the industry to push for higher prices in the next gen.

Yes.

I've felt for quite a while that there's a lot of overlap in what we're saying. If you look at my posts, I've never once complained about Wii U games being too expensive. The closest I've come to it is in this thread where I noted that people find the price discrepancy galling and that's understandable if you come at it from the point of view of "it's the same game", even if that position is a little misguided. Far more understandable, however, than those complaining about the price of the game discussed in this thread by saying "it's download only, it should be cheaper" (for example, post #45 here: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/02/nintendo_download_7t... ) which fails to distinguish the product (what you're paying for) from the distribution method (entirely incidental - discs have an upfront production cost but the price difference as a proportion of overall production and development costs is negligible).

Wii U is next generation, and slightly higher price than last gen consoles. We can expect price parity, or slightly below price, compared to the next gen PS and Xbox games?

Because I agree with that, and I think it's fair for the industry to push for higher prices in the next gen.

Yes.

I've felt for quite a while that there's a lot of overlap in what we're saying. If you look at my posts, I've never once complained about Wii U games being too expensive. The closest I've come to it is in this thread where I noted that people find the price discrepancy galling and that's understandable if you come at it from the point of view of "it's the same game", even if that position is a little misguided. Far more understandable, however, than those complaining about the price of the game discussed in this thread by saying "it's download only, it should be cheaper" (for example, post #45 here: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/02/nintendo_download_7t... ) which fails to distinguish the product (what you're paying for) from the distribution method (entirely incidental - discs have an upfront production cost but the price difference as a proportion of overall production and development costs is negligible).